Survey: These are the loneliest professions in America

If you’ve ever felt lonely at work, you know it’s possible to be surrounded by people at the office and to still feel completely alone. This feeling is isolating, and it’s a growing epidemic. After more than nine million people in the U.K. reported feeling lonely most of their days, the country recently appointed a minister for loneliness to investigate the issue. In the United States, over 40% of adults report feeling lonely.

The former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy outlined the stakes: We need to address this as a mental health crisis or it will ruin our societies.

“Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day,” he wrote. “If we cannot rebuild strong, authentic social connections, we will continue to splinter apart — in the workplace and in society.”

To understand the feeling better, one group of researchers collected data on loneliness in the workplace. What they found was that there are some careers and employees who are particularly at-risk of feeling lonely.